Photo :The following is the listing of players and coaches from left to right:Connor O’Hara #52, Coach Brian O’Hara,J.T. Luther #28,Joe Grasso #4,Matt Sullivan #23,Dylan Leith #6,Coach Mike Vigliotti,Angelo LaVaglia #13,Johnny Pilla #11,Mike Vigliotti #10,Jeremy Schneider #25,Jackson Kammen #19,Coach Mike Kammen,Jake Kleiman #45
August 1,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Raiders 14U baseball team just made an improbable run, winning our Little District (District 4), our Section (Section 1), and winning the State Championship yesterday 7/29 over Sayreville. Each step along the way, we lost a game early in each tournament yet won all 9 elimination games we played to win the Junior League State Title.
In District Play, we lost the first Junior League game we played on July 7th vs Westwood, 6-4. We then beat Washington Township 10-0 on July 9th and were then able to beat Westwood two games in a row, 14-4 on July 10th and 10-0 on July 11th to win the District 4 Title and move onto sectionals. District games were played in Dumont and Westwood.
In Sectional Play, we won our first game vs Lackawanna Newton 11-2 on July 13th. The next day July 14th, we suffered a 9-8 loss to a tough and talented team from Parsippany Troy Hills East (PTE) , a game in which we had a 7-3 lead. We then beat Lackawanna Newton on July 16th 4-2 to set up a rematch in the Championship with Parsippany Troy Hills East (PTE). However, PTE had no losses, so being these are double elimination tournaments we would have to beat them twice. We beat them two in a row, 13-0 on July 18th and 10-0 on July 20th to win the Section 1 Championship! All of those games were played in Bloomingdale NJ.
We then moved on to the NJ State Tournament hosted in Lyndhurst. We won our first game 17-1 on July 24th vs. Saddle Brook but suffered a tough loss to a very good hitting team from Sayreville on July 26th 11-6. We were then rained out on Friday July 27th. We were able to beat Saddle Brook 15-5 at 1:00pm on hot and humid Saturday. This again set up for a rematch against Sayreville who had zero losses. We played them at 3:30pm immediately following the Saddle Brook game and outslugged them 13-10 to set up a true Championship game on Sunday July 29th. Both teams scored runs in the first inning and the game stayed tied until we scored 3 in the 3rd inning to make it 4-1. Sayreville was able to add a run to make it 4-2 in the 4th but we were able to tack on a run in the 6th and 5 more in the 7th to come away with the 10-2 game!
Our team now moves on to represent New Jersey in the Eastern Regional Tournament being held at Michael J Tighe Field in Freehold NJ from August 2nd-August 8th. The winner of the Eastern Regional will move on to play in the Junior World Series held in Taylor Michigan August 12th to August 19th!
Ridgewood is looking to follow in the footsteps of the 2015 Junior League team which advanced to the Junior World Series!
